The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 2/29/2016

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: As I was eating another fast food salad at my desk today, Chris, I was thinking you`re probably having a much better work food source in your life right now.

CHRIS HAYES, “ALL IN” HOST: I had a brisket sandwich for lunch. I`m considering another one for dinner. But I don`t think that`s a good idea. I`m going to sit on that after the show.

MADDOW: If you bring me home some brisket, I`ll make it worth your while.

HAYES: All right. I`ll do it.

MADDOW: Thanks, my friend.

And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy Super Tuesday eve.

In the 2012 Republican presidential race, so in the last race, the presidential debates that year started so early. The Republican started debating in 2012, a year and a half before the election. They started in the spring of 2011.

Ultimately, there were 20 different Republican debates in the 2012 race. And you will remember those debates, they were amazing, right? Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain with the 999 thing, and Newt Gingrich denouncing the moderators. It was nutty.

But what might have been the nuttiest presidential debate of all that year got scheduled for late December 2011 and then ultimately never happened. It got cancelled. A very conservative Website called Newsmax had planned to do a Republican debate that year between Christmas and New Year`s. They had a venue all picked out in Des Moines, Iowa. It was right ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

They had a TV network that was set to broadcast the debate. They invited the Republican candidates to be there. Everything was going swimmingly, until the candidates started saying no. The candidates started RSVP`ing no that they wouldn`t attend.

And the reason they wouldn`t go, the reason they were offended by the whole prospect of this Newsmax debate is they were offended by the person who Newsmax chose to moderate that debate. The first campaigns to object were the campaigns of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman. They both said they would not do that debate as long as that one person was moderating.

Ultimately, Mitt Romney said the same thing, said he wouldn`t be there either. Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann, they opted out as well.

Finally, Newsmax had to cancel the whole thing because their moderator choice was so controversial, was so obnoxious to basically all of the Republican candidates that year that it became impossible for them to host the debate. None of the candidates would agree to it.

And that`s because the person Newsmax chose to host that debate in Iowa right before the Iowa caucuses was Donald Trump.

This was in the 2012 campaign. It was right ahead of the Iowa caucuses. They picked Trump to be a moderator.

Ron Paul`s campaign at the time said, quote, “Mr. Trump`s participation would contribute to an unwanted circus-like atmosphere.”

That caused Mr. Trump to respond at the time, “Few people take Ron Paul seriously and many of his views and his presentation make up a clown-like candidate.”

So, Mr. Trump ended up withdrawing as the moderator for that Newsmax event. The debate ended up getting cancelled. And the Republican primary in 2012 lumbered on for a really long time. A lot of people considering it to be quite clown-like or quite circus-like anyway, even without Donald Trump moderating one of their debates.

Ultimately, in 2012, Mitt Romney emerged as the party`s nominee at the end of that long, very funny primary process. But when Mitt Romney got trounced in the general election by President Obama, the Republican Party decided that maybe their own primary process was part of what set Mitt Romney up to lose in November. So, they made some changes to their primary process.

The first thing they changed was the Republican Party debate schedule for 2016. They decided next time around, there`s not going to be another primary with 20 freaking debates. They decided they would only allow candidates to participate in events that were sanctioned by the party.

The other thing they changed was the nominating process itself. The party believed that Mitt Romney was basically the inevitable nominee from the start in 2012. But he had to slog on for too many months with these other basically hopeless candidates dragging him down and throwing punches at him even though they had no real chance to win themselves.

Because that`s the way Republicans viewed what happened in 2012, they decided what they would do for 2016 was shorten the primary campaign. They shortened it on both ends. At the end of the process they moved Republican convention up. So, instead of happening like Labor Day, now, it happens way earlier in summer. The choice of the nominee technically will happen earlier in the process.

They also changed the front end of the process. They changed the allocation of the delegates in the early state so that basically the early front-runner in the Republican race can lock up the Republican nomination without giving any of those second tier straggling candidates a chance to ever catch up.

I`m sure the Republican Party feels like that would be an excellent change to apply retro actively to the 2012 process that chose Romney. I mean, looking back at the Romney candidacy, they`re probably right. The process that they put in place after Romney lost is a process that would have helped Mitt Romney in 2012.

But you can`t go back to 2012. You can`t go back this time. You can`t fight the last war. You can only fight the next wear.

And this process they created to help the early front runner lock down the nomination and not give anybody else a chance, that is now what they are stuck with. In a year when the front-runner is not somebody like Mitt Romney – it`s freaking Donald Trump. The guy who was too ridiculous and circus-like to be even be allowed to moderate a conservative website debate the last time around but now is running the table and locking up the nomination for himself.

With Mr. Trump having won three of the first four states, with him leading in ten of the 11 states that are going to vote on the Republican side tomorrow, that Republican Party decision to change the process so that the nominee gets picked early. So, the front-runner gets to lock in an early lead and convert that into the nomination, that`s the whirlwind that Republicans are reaping right now as they freak out about the prospect of Donald Trump becoming their nominee.

Here`s the other thing that`s going on that explains a little more about now just who is winning the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, but the tenor of the race as he steams toward getting that big prize, because at the same time the Republican Party made this change to get the nominating process over and done with more quickly, as they made this change to increase this influence of early states, they also simultaneously made a separate decision that the early states from here on out should be way more Southern than they used to be.

Just look at Super Tuesday. These were the states last time around when Mitt Romney was having his hard time wrapping up the Republican nomination. This is who was voting on Super Tuesday in 2012. This is not the same group of states that`s going to be voting on Super Tuesday this year.

The party this year decided on a substantially different mix of states. They dropped Idaho and North Dakota and Ohio, and instead they added in states like Alabama, and Arkansas and Texas. When you add Alabama, and Arkansas and Texas to the other sprinkling of Southern states that already were on Super Tuesday, and you combine that newly, deeply southern Super Tuesday with the delegate allocation process that makes it basically impossible to stop a Republican front-runner any time after Super Tuesday -- then, yes, what you end up with a presidential nomination in the Republican Party that gets decided according to who can appeal to the hard right, all white deep conservatives on the Republican Party.

In the Republican Party`s new primary process which they built because they thought it took Mitt Romney to look up the nomination in 2012, in the new process, where it`s almost impossible to catch the front-runner after Super Tuesday, these are this year`s Super Tuesday states for the Republican Party.

And no, it`s not all in the South, but it is primarily in the South – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia. And we don`t have exit poll data for recent Republican primaries in a few of those states, but where we do have that exit poll data about who turns out for Republican primary, look at the racial break down of the vote in those states on the Republican side.

And so, you know, what you start ends up finishing, right? Process matters. Choosing to have your nominee selected by all white, deeply conservative, hard core Republican voters across the American South, that has consequences for who gets picked. That has consequences for what a winning campaign sounds like this year in the pursuit for the Republican presidential nomination.

This was Donald Trump in Madison, Alabama, this weekend, in front of a crowd that local law enforcement described as 15,000 people. The Trump campaign described it as more than 30,000 people, naturally.

At this huge Alabama event, no matter who`s counting, Donald Trump was endorsed by the first U.S. senator who has signed onto his campaign, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions is known as the most virulent immigration opponent in the U.S. Senate. That`s in part why this endorsement was seen as competitively important in the Republican race because Ted Cruz has been dropping Jeff Sessions name throughout his campaign in order to make himself seem as hard line anti-immigrant as possible.

And Ted Cruz campaign is already in trouble, right? They already have to be worried they may not be able to compete anywhere outside of Ted Cruz`s home state of Texas tomorrow on Super Tuesday. With that in their plate already, Jeff Sessions endorsing Donald Trump in Alabama, that is a particularly blow for Senator Ted Cruz.

So, in competitive, immediate competitive terms, that`s what the Jeff Sessions endorsement of Donald Trump in Alabama means. The Jeff Sessions endorsement of Donald Trump in Alabama, though, is also a good reminder of who Jeff Sessions is.

Before Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was ever elected to the United States Senate, he was rejected by the United States Senate as a nominee for federal judgeship in the 1980s.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLI)

TV ANCHOR: A federal judgeship is a lifetime appointment and President Reagan has been nominating young men for these jobs, 32 to 38 years old, people who could keep the Reagan influence around for a long time. However, one of Mr. Reagan`s nominees is in trouble in Washington, in troubling for saying that NAACP is a pinko organization and that a white civil rights attorney from his home state of Alabama is a disgrace to his race.

NBC News national political correspondent Ken Bode is in our Washington studio this morning with more on that nomination.

Morning, Ken.

KEN BODE, NBC NEWS: Morning, Jane. The man who said those things and would be a federal judge is Jeff Sessions.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Mr. Session is a throw back to a shameful era which I know both black and white Americans thought was in our past. It`s inconceivable to me that a person of this attitude is qualified to be a U.S. attorney let alone a United States and federal judge.

BODE: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, he was brought face-to-face with things he personally had said. For example, that the NAACP and the Civil Liberties Union are un-American organizations.

JEFFERSON SESSIONS, THEN-FEDERAL JUDGESHIPS NOMINEE: These comments that you could say about a commie organization, I may have said something like that in a general way and probably was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOWE: Commie organizations.

Jeff Sessions first rose to national prominence as a man with a record that was too racist for him to be confirmed as a federal judge in the Reagan era. At his confirmation hearing, a black assistant U.S. attorney in Alabama testified that Jeff Sessions had called him boy and warned him about the way he spoke to white people.

That did not ultimately stop Alabama Republicans from electing him to the United States Senate. Now, he`s the first endorsement from the United States for Donald Trump for president.

Donald Trump also picked up an endorsement today from the man who authored the “papers please” anti-immigrant law in Arizona a few years ago. His name is Kris Kobach. He`s the secretary of state in Kansas. He and the man with whom he co-wrote that papers please law explained to “The Washington Post” why they wrote that bill in Arizona and why they hoped other states would adopt the Arizona language as a model.

They described their motivation as such, quote, “Immigration is on track to change the demographic make up of the entire country, you know, what they call minority-majority. How many countries have gone through a transition like that peacefully, carefully. It`s theoretically possible but we don`t have any examples.”

And so, therefore, we need anti-immigrant legislation so America doesn`t go through this dangerous process of becoming a minority-majority, and that`s the stated justification for the papers please law, for this anti-immigration law, right? We need good anti-immigrant legislation to make sure America stays white enough. We need to keep the number of non-white people in America as low as possible, so we don`t become minority-majority.

Donald Trump just got the Kris Kobach endorsement, too.

He also recently picked up a gubernatorial endorsement from this guy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. PAUL LEPAGE (R), MAINE: Now, the traffickers, these aren`t people that take drugs. These are guys that are named D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty, these types of guys that come from Connecticut and New York. They come up here, they sell their heroin and then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time, they impregnate a young white girl before they leave.

I was going impromptu and my brain didn`t catch up to my mouth. Instead of saying Maine women, I said white women. I`m not going to apologize to the Maine women for that. If you go to Maine, you`ll see that we`re essentially 95 percent white.

If you want to make it racist, go right ahead. Do whatever you want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: It`s Maine Governor Paul LePage in the brief interregnum when he was still insisting that he didn`t mean to say anything about race at all. That was before a few days later, he finally just said this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

LEPAGE: I had to go screaming at the top of my lungs about black dealers coming in and doing the things that they`re doing to our state.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MADDOW: So, Donald Trump just got Paul LePage`s endorsement as well.

I mean, this is race where in Iowa and New Hampshire there were white supremacist robocalls literally from groups that identify themselves overtly as white nationalist group, sending out robocalls to Iowa and New Hampshire Republican voters, telling them to vote for Donald Trump basically as a matter of white prides.

That was already happening in Iowa and New Hampshire before the Republican presidential contest took their turn to the Deep South. But now, the Republican presidential contests have taken their turn to the Deep South.

The hostility toward me by the judge, tremendous hostility beyond belief. I believe he happens to be Spanish, which is fine. He`s Hispanic, which is fine. And we haven`t asked for recusal, which we may do. But we have a judge that`s very hostile.

We have a very hostile judge. Now, he is Hispanic, I believe. He is a very hostile judge to me. I`ve said it loud and clear.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN: I want to ask you about the Anti-Defamation League that called you to condemn unequivocally the racism of former KKK grand wizard David Duke who recently said that voting against you at this point would be treason to your heritage.

Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don`t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?

TRUMP: Just so you understand, I don`t know anything about David Duke, OK? I don`t know about what you`re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don`t know.

I mean, I don`t know – did he endorse me or what`s going on? Because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. So, you`re asking me a question that I`m supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.

TAPPER: But I guess the question from the Anti-Defamation League is, even if you don`t know about their endorsement, there are these groups and individuals endorsing you. Would you say, unequivocally, you condemn them and you don`t want their support?

TRUMP: Well, I have to look at the group. I mean, I don`t know what group you`re talking about. You wouldn`t want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. I have to look.

If you would send me list of the groups, I will do research on them and certainly I would disavow if I thought there was something wrong.

TAPPER: The Ku Klux Klan.

TRUMP: You may have groups that are fine and it`s totally unfair. So, give me a list of the groups and I`ll let you know.

TAPPER: OK. I mean, I`m just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here, but –

MADDOW: Republican front-runner Donald Trump on CNN yesterday, refusing to condemn David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, which is a little weird because Mr. Trump had previously said he would disavow David Duke`s support, now he claims that whole CNN exchange happened because his earpiece did not worked properly and he couldn`t hear the question and he did not understand what he commented on, even though he himself a number of times said the name David Duke during that interview.

So, if you believe that it was all an earpiece problem, there`s some very nice swamp front property you might want to invest in scouting locations for your March 15th Florida primary hootenanny.

When George Wallace ran for president on an explicitly segregationist political platform in 1968, one of the things we have been able to find in the old news footage of his rallies that I always think is interesting is people holding up signs with swastikas on them and things that say things like “Sieg Heil” and Hitler II.

Those were not neo-Nazis at George Wallace rallies. Those were protesters showing up trying to sound the alarm to the country about what kind of racist demagogue George Wallace was and the racist demagoguery that he represented with his campaign.

And that kind of denunciation of George Wallace, it worked in 1968. It worked in most places, but it did not work everywhere. George Wallace on his explicitly segregationist platform in 1968, he won five states in the general election. And three of those five states, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas are going to be voting tomorrow and all of them are strongly favored to go to Donald Trump tomorrow.

And because of the front loaded importance and influence of states like that in the Republican process this year, the big wins he`s expected to get in those George Wallace states tomorrow will go a long way toward propelling him to the Republican presidential nomination and toward putting that nomination out of reach of anyone else in the field. If you design a system like this, it will produce an outcome like this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Tomorrow is Super Tuesday. I`m supposed to sleep tonight to get ready for it but I`m too excited.

There`s too much going on, including a lot to get to on tonight`s show, just over the course of the next hour. One of the things we`re going to get to tonight is some legitimately good news out of place that`s only been giving us bad news for months. We have a happy story out of Flint, Michigan, of all places.

And still ahead, we get some keen insight into why the South is expected to go so big for Donald Trump tomorrow night.

We`ve got lots more ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI VITALI, NBC NEWS: Are you planning on voting on Tuesday?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, yes.

VITALI: Is there anything that Donald Trump can say today that might make you not to support him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, no. I agree with everything he says.

VITALI: And I was asking that gentleman over there any reaction that you had there were certain white supremacist groups, former grand master KKK, David Duke, has come out and endorsed him. Does that bother you at all?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No comment. I don`t –

VITALI: Recently he`s come under some scrutiny because some white supremacist groups, former grand master of the KKK have endorsed him. Does that bother you at all?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody`s a person. I don`t choose (INAUDIBLE). So, if they want to support him, that`s their choice. Like my choice.

VITALI: Does it bother you that he`s attracting those kind of people?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. Why should it?

VITALI: Are you planning on voting on Tuesday?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am.

VITALI: And you`re going to vote for?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump.

VITALI: Are you planning on voting on Tuesday?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I am.

VITALI: And are you planning to vote for Mr. Trump?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

VITALI: Anything he could say to change your mind?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not at all.

VITALI: And recently, within the news, there are some white supremacist groups have come out to support him, David Duke, former grand master with KKK. Does that bother you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re the same age. I grew up in the `60s.

VITALI: So, it doesn`t bother you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn`t. It doesn`t matter to met at all. I`m for him totally.

Joining us now is Elise Jordan. She`s an NBC News and MSNBC political analyst, a former senior policy advisor to the Senator Rand Paul campaign and a legitimate born and bred Mississippian.

Elise, it`s great to see you. Thank you for being here.

ELISE JORDAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks for having me.

MADDOW: So, I think that the Republican Party, by stacking the primary, so that stuff got decided earlier and simultaneously putting a whole bunch of Southern states at the start of the primary process might have created this situation inadvertently, but they may have created this situation that we`re having in the Trump campaign right now a little bit by their own means.

JORDAN: Well, it`s ironic this was done for Mitt Romney and to help Mitt Romney on some level back in 2012 and, you know, there was, back then, I remember in Mississippi hearing some people say like Mitt Romney is the Mormon question was huge in that election. And now, you look at this year how it`s just come back to really bite the party.

And then is the rule going to hold, say, this brokered convention scenario, Rule number 40? In 2012, it meant a candidate had to have won eight states to have any possibility to go through this brokered convention scenario. Who knows if Rubio and Cruz will ever even come close to that? It`s bizarre how this year has really broken literally ever rule in the book.

MADDOW: I mean, that issue about the convention, it doesn`t have to be a brokered convention. It could be contested convention.

The way the NBC`s “First Read” does the delegate math right now, as they say, basically, Donald Trump can lock up the nomination before the convention. He`s won three of the first four states. He`s going to run the table tomorrow with the exception of Texas. He`s – you know, by March 15th, he could be well on his way to having enough delegates to win the nomination.

There`s nobody else will have a chance to do that. Anybody else will have to win by going into the convention with nobody having clenched the deal and it gets decided at the convention.

What kind of incentives does that create for the rest of the primaries?

JORDAN: Well, I think also the Republican Party establishment has this fine line to navigate of not alienating Trump supporters who are going to be a huge part of the overall turnout. So, what does that do to the other races? Is it better to just, oh, let Trump will get the nomination and just not be perhaps as supportive and, you know, hope he doesn`t do as well because of what it will mean for the party long term. I personally don`t think it will destroy the party.

But these are very tenuous balance to strike. And then I don`t know if you saw the story about the RGA call this morning but the Republican Governor Association, they did a conference call this morning with all the governors and Governor Martinez was on the call and she was encouraging non-endorsement of Trump whereas Chris Christie outlined the reason he was supporting Trump.

So, this is going at all levels of the party. There`s a furious debate over Trump and what he means to longevity of the Republican message.

MADDOW: “The New York Times” also reported this weekend on a remarkable – just a jaw dropping plan that`s apparently been hatched by Senator Mitch McConnell. He`s got to worry about his majority in the Senate, right? And there`s a bunch of vulnerable senators who are up for re-election.

And apparently, the plan, according to “The New York Times”, is that vulnerable senators or maybe all Republican senators, with the exception of Jeff Sessions, will not only divorce themselves from Donald Trump stylistically in terms of endorsement and things like, but they might in their own Senate re-election campaign run negative ads against Donald Trump, try to defeat Donald Trump, consider it as a given that he will lose and essentially try to talk voters into electing a Republican Senate as a counter-balance to Hillary Clinton. That sounds too clever by half to me.

JORDAN: It seems too difficult considering so far today, Donald Trump was supposed to be the one month summer fling and look at where he is now. I just – I can`t believe we`re into February – at this time last year, Senator Rand Paul who I worked for was leading the polls. His message was one of bringing in people to the Republican Party, if not alienating them, of bringing in people concerned about criminal justice reform, going and speaking at University of California-Berkeley, and appealing to privacy advocates. And it really – that was absolutely not the message that resonated this primary season.

MADDOW: To say the least.

JORDAN: It`s very dark and depressing to me.

MADDOW: Well, maybe it`s always darkest before the dawn. Other problem that means nothing to make you feel better.

Elise Jordan, thank you so much. It`s really good to have you here. Thank you.

JORDAN: Thanks for having me.

MADDOW: Elise is an NBC News and MSNBC political analyst.

All right. It turns out someone else in this race, besides Donald Trump, is giving folks a run for their money in a very unexpected way. That story is coming up tonight on “The Interview”.

You see the kind of turn out he got tonight. There are 11 Democratic races tomorrow on Super Tuesday. Ad spending data shows the Hillary Clinton campaign or super PAC supporting her, they are spending money to try to win tomorrow in all 11 Super Tuesday states.

The Sanders campaign, in contrast, is only spending in five states. They`re spending money in Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma and they`re spending a little bit of money in Texas. That means the rest of the field, they`re essentially conceding to Secretary Clinton, at least in terms of the ad wars.

And it`s interesting, the Sanders campaign does not say they are trying to win in Texas. The money they spent there, the rallies they held over the weekend that got big turnouts, those efforts are aimed at not winning Texas but at least trying to hold down Secretary Clinton`s margin in Texas and claim some delegates out of that very, very delegate-rich state.

What the Sanders campaign says they are trying to win are these five states on your screen right now. Minnesota, Colorado which are both caucus states, Oklahoma, the senator`s home state of Vermont and the state of Massachusetts, where we just saw him at that rally. Now, of these states, Senator Sanders has a huge lead in his home state. It`s actually surprising I think that Secretary Clinton is spending anything in Vermont, but she has spent a little there.

He`s also expected to do well in Minnesota and Colorado. There`s not great polling out of those states, but on the ground reporting suggests that he is doing well in Minnesota and Colorado.

In terms of Oklahoma, the latest Monmouth University poll out today shows Senator Sanders with a five-point lead in Oklahoma, 48-43 over Secretary Clinton in that state.

And that leaves Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, it could be tougher for Senator Sanders. A WBUR poll last week had Secretary Clinton up by five points in Massachusetts. A Suffolk University just out this weekend shows her leading in Massachusetts by a larger amount, shows her leading by eight points, 50-42.

But those kind of poll numbers is why the Clinton campaign has added late events in Massachusetts, including Secretary Clinton addressing some very large overflow crowds today in Boston.

Massachusetts is suddenly an important battleground for the Democratic nomination, if only because Senator Sanders had said he will win Massachusetts. That means if he doesn`t win there, he will be underperforming his own expectations. The Clinton campaign will take that as a momentum boost and, frankly, a big psychological victory, not to mention a whole big pile of Massachusetts delegates.

Now, after Super Tuesday, the Sanders campaign says they are focused on Missouri, Illinois and Ohio. Those are all states that vote in two weeks on March 15th. Senator Sanders in interviews is also saying and it rallies now sometimes, is also saying that he`s looking further down the calendar for some big wins as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: Well, we are trying to win every delegate that we can and not only are we fighting for Super Tuesday, we`re looking ahead to California, the largest state of all, New York state. We think we`re going to do well in Michigan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Michigan, California, New York.

Michigan votes next week. But the New York primary is not until April 19th. The California primary is not until June 7th. That`s more than three months away.

And in a usual campaign when a candidate just lost by almost 50 points in South Carolina, it`s not even trying to win in more than half the Super Tuesday states, it would be weird to be talking now about your hopes to win a primary more than three months down the road from now.

That said this is not a usual campaign in either party, because even though Senator Bernie Sanders` path to the Democratic presidential nomination looks narrow, it even looks hard to follow at this point. Bernie Sanders does inarguably have one huge thing on his side, which is that Senator Bernie Sanders is drowning in sea of money.

He doesn`t take super PAC money, so this is just his campaign. The $21 million he took in January absolutely blew everyone else away from both parties last month. Now, this month in February, he just doubled it.

This is nuts. Nobody else in the field could keep up with the $20 million he raised last month. Now, this month he`s raised oaf $40 million. Of the $41.6 million his campaign said today they raised in the months of February, more than $5 million raised today alone.

That is a mind-bending amount of money to raise at this point in the race. I know big numbers all sound alike. But honestly, Bernie Sanders raising over $40 million in one month. That`s a qualitative difference with everybody else. That is absolutely burying everybody else.

So, that turns out to be his wild card. He`s drowning in money. Can he deploy that money to make his start winning in unexpected places? Or can he deploy it that he starts winning in enough places to plausibly put him in contention for the nomination?

We don`t know. We will know part of that tomorrow with the Super Tuesday results. Again, a lot of eyes tomorrow on Massachusetts. What we`re going to learn a little more about that prospect right here next with a very special guest who is here live for the interview. And that`s next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TULSI GABBARD (D), HAWAII: As these elections continue across the country, the American people are faced with a very clear choice. We can elect a president who will lead us into more interventionist wars of regime change or we can elect a president who will usher in a new era of piece and prosperity.

It`s with this clear choice in mind that I`m resigning as chair of the DNC so that I can strongly support Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: You get to be the vice chair of the National Democratic Party because your party thinks you`re going places. But you once you get a gig like that, it comes with a price. You have to remain impartial in Democratic primaries, like say the big one going on right now between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii this weekend resigned her vice chair position at the DNC, excuse me, in order to endorse Bernie Sanders for president in this Democratic primary.

Now, as a very high profile Democratic member of Congress, as a rising star in the Democratic Party, as an Iraq war veteran, this endorsement by Tulsi Gabbard is a very big deal for Senator Sanders. I think it`s also a big deal for Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

Congresswoman Gabbard joins us tonight now for the interview.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you being here tonight.

GABBARD: Thank you for having me, Rachel. It`s always great to talk with you.

MADDOW: So, as vice chair of the DNC, you had to be impartial. You couldn`t say what you felt in terms of your opinion between the two candidates, when did you come to the decision that you wanted to endorse Bernie Sanders more strongly than you wanted to stay at the DNC and keep to that agreement?

GABBARD: Rachel, I got to tell you – it`s been increasingly frustrating over the last several months as I`ve seen these presidential primaries continue, frankly, on both the Democratic and the Republican side, and how cheaply both they and most of the media have taken the issues of war and peace, and not challenging these candidates to really explain their positions in depth, to examine what kind of commander in chief they will be for our country, which I think is the most important job that the president has.

So, as I was going through this frustration and trying in my own way to insert these conversations to push the media to be more accountable for these candidates, it came to a point where I had to see where can I be most effective, because there`s so much at stake in this election.

That`s why I endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders because I know firsthand, you know, during my first deployment to Iraq, I served in a medical unit where every single day, I saw the high human cost of war. Coming home, serving in Congress now, or dealing with budgets and we`re seeing every day the economic impact of how all of these resources in – that we as a country have spent in these wars of regime change have cost our country and our economy and our ability to really invest in nation build here at home.

So, I`m endorsing Bernie Sanders because he has that sound judgment and that foresight, and that commitment to stopping these interventionist wars of regime change. And there`s a very clear difference between him and Secretary Clinton in that regard.

MADDOW: Well, Secretary Clinton has, I guess, I would say she has tried to persuade Democrats that she would not be more hawkish than President Obama. I asked her that question directly. She said she would not be more hawkish than President Obama, and that perception was inaccurate.

She`s tried to persuade Democrats she`s learned her lesson why the vote for the Iraq war in 2002 was the wrong vote.

You`re not persuaded by that argument from her, clearly. But do you feel like if she won the nomination, you`d ultimately be able to support her, or is this endorsement from Bernie Sanders an absolute rejection of what she has to offer on this issue that`s so important to you?

GABBARD: Rachel, I`m glad you brought this up, because there`s a few really important points there. I think there`s a very clear difference between what someone says and what they actually do.

And that`s where we look at this most important question of who our next commander in chief could be and what qualities we look for them. We can tell what they would do by look at our past.

I have not heard Secretary Clinton actually apologize to my brothers and sisters in uniform, military families for her vote for the Iraq war. She said it`s a mistake and she`s learned from it. When you go down the line and say how do you explain her being the architect and champion behind the war, the military action to overthrow Gadhafi in Libya? And when you look at that result of that action and that mission that she set out upon successfully, we`ve got a failed state full of chaos, thousands of lives lost, and now, ISIS and al Qaeda having a stronghold in that country.

Take another step forward, if she says she`s learned from Iraq, then why is she championing this war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad and essentially promising to escalate the war if she`s elected as president by implementing a so-called no-fly zone?

And you`ve questioned Secretary Clinton on this issue of the no fly zone and taking this action would put us directly in conflict with Russia, and what the implications of that will be. So, again, this is why the issue of judgment is so critical and how Hillary and Bernie differ very greatly and where there`s a clear choice for those who are going to be voting tomorrow and then the coming states about what they`re looking for in that commander in chief.

MADDOW: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, if you did this endorsement, as you say, in order to try to get people talking about national security issues in the primary in the way they haven`t been already, you have succeeded in doing that by especially doing in way that`s so focused – thanks for being with us tonight.

GABBARD: Thank you. We`re just beginning, Rachel. Thank you.

MADDOW: Appreciate you being here.

All right. We`ve got much more ahead on this very busy Super Tuesday eve. We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: As promised, I have some good news from an unexpected place. They threw a party in Flint, Michigan, last night, and Stevie Wonder showed up. The Justice for Flint concert was big. It was effective. They raised almost $150,000 for Flint so far. That was kind of awesome.

Then, today, another party of a different kind in Flint. Look at this. Mayor Karen Weaver just this morning celebrating the successful trial run for finally starting to remove Flint`s ruined and toxic lead pipes. Flint has been investigating a faster, cheaper way to replace its pipes. It was a way that was invented by another Michigan city, by Lansing.

In Flint today, they dug up their first pipe using the new technique, and it was a success. It worked. Mayor Weaver in Flint tells us tonight that her plan to start removing all the city`s lead service lines will be full steam ahead starting Thursday, as in tomorrow`s Tuesday and before the end of the week, Thursday. Party in Flint, Michigan.

Flint, you are about to get some new pipes, finally, after all this time. Feels like a miracle.

State government ruined the city`s pipes starting in the spring of 2014, and that`s how everybody got poisoned. They are finally about to start the work of replacing them, thanks to a fiercely determined mayor who will not take no for an answer. It is a small first step, but finally, it is a first step to fixing Flint. We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: It`s the last day of the month. Happy leap day.

One of the things that happens is one month turns into the next, is that we get these little giblets of data in terms of fund-raising and ad spending and stuff in politics. And today, there`s one that I think says more than anything else about who the next president is going to be and how we`re going to get there. And that is this number.

This number, the circled one there, that`s John Kasich`s ad spending in Alaska. That turns out to be funny on its face and also very important for figuring out what`s going to happen next in our country. I will tell you why that number is the key that kind of unlocks the Republican race right now. I`m serious. That story`s next.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Governor, we`re not used to getting much attention from national politicians, especially in election years. I`m sure you really do like us here in Vermont. But what`s the strategy behind spending so much time in a state with so few delegates?

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, because we think it`s a state that can understand me. Vermont shouldn`t be ignored. I mean, this is not a country where we just ignore a small state.

I mean, if it was on the other side of the globe, you know, up in Alaska or somewhere, it would be hard to get to. But it`s all part of this effort. And I think – I hope that Vermont efforts get me and that we can have a respectable showing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Vermont, you are part of the plan this year for Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Also, Alaska, little shoutout there. Nobody ever thinks of Alaska in a presidential election. But John Kasich does. He`s spending more than $4,000 there for the Alaska caucuses tomorrow.

He`s spending the equivalent of this 2008 Ford Focus on radio ads in Alaska, when he could be buying this 2008 Ford Focus instead.

I submit to you humbly that in John Kasich`s sudden love for Vermont and Alaska, in these otherwise mysterious political doings, there lies a key to the Republican presidential race right now. And it`s this: over the past few days, it`s become clear that mathematically there`s only two possibilities for this field. Either Donald Trump wins enough delegates to lock up the nomination or nobody does, in which case the party`s nominee is going to be decided at their convention this summer in Cleveland.

If it goes to a contested convention, there is a real path to the nomination for John Kasich or for anybody, because if we`re headed to a contested convention, primaries really don`t matter anymore. If this race really is going to be decided at a convention, literally nothing between now and the convention will matter. I mean, if you`re John Kasich, all you have to do is get there. Stay alive and stay on people`s minds until Cleveland.

So why not stay in the race and pick up delegates in neglected states with cheap ad rates like Vermont or Alaska? If you`re John Kasich, you don`t need to win Texas or Florida. You don`t need to court the conservative base. Heck, you can spend the day before Super Tuesday telling voters in Vermont how you expanded Obamacare and it was awesome, which is what John Kasich did today.

But if it really is going to go to the convention, you`re not worried about Republican primaries. You just want to look electable come November and you want to look alive come Cleveland.

And despite it bewildering the beltway, that calculus is why conservative Republican Governor John Kasich can afford to be running a really moderate campaign right now. He skipped the part of the process where you win the primary from the right and then you have to sprint to the middle for the general. He skipped that part because the only way anyone other than Donald Trump has a shot at the nomination is an end game in which the primaries really don`t matter.

And the Republican field really only has two ways forward at this point. Donald Trump wins the nomination or nobody does and we get that convention. That`s it. What he`s doing right now makes total sense.

That does it for us tonight. We will see you again tomorrow for our Super Tuesday coverage.

Now, it`s time for “THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL”.

Good evening, Lawrence.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END

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